The Neighborhood That Held Still

On August 29, 2021, Hurricane Ida slammed into Port Fourchon, Louisiana, with 150-mile-per-hour winds. The bayou communities south of New Orleans watched the Gulf swallow roads whole. Power lines snapped like thread. In Grand Isle, virtually every structure sustained damage. But forty miles north, in the small town of Thibodaux, residents at First Baptist gathered in their fellowship hall as the walls shuddered and rain drove sideways against the windows.…